Price of Innocence...

“How are you vakil-saheb?” asked me the younger brother of my village’s sarpanch as we settled on the cowdung smoothened floor of his vast-spread Patil wada. Sambhu Patil as he was called. Sambhu, a short nick for his long name “Sambhaji” and “Patil” that meant “sarpanch” in marathi. I had long gotten my job and left the village 18yrs ago. I was an engineer and not a lawyer. But people of this village refuse changes. I was always supposed to be a lawyer because a farmer’s son is supposed to be a farmer here, no matter what he actually does and I was vakil saheb because my father was a lawyer.

“The harvest has been fine this year” he said just after calling the mother of his children to serve us with the raw milk that had touched only the glass we were to drink it from before being poured into our mouths. With those droplets of milk slid through the age-old memories of our childhood and youth. We as children had splashed the water in the village wells together, chased all creatures from chameleons to wolfs that came to eat sugarcanes in his farm and had also stolen onions, carrots and what-not from farms not our. As youths, I was the one who introduced him to whisky and he “tamasha” to me. We were so close that he would have made me suck that milk right from the buffalo’s nipples if he could, for fresh raw milk at sarpanch’s place is supposed to be an honor.

As the course of discussions moved towards more recent happenings, we came back to our own families after having completed a circle of politics, harvests and people. I was about to leave when suddenly I saw Radha standing at the door to touch my feet. She was wearing a mangalsutra and sindoor on her head. I was shocked for she was merely fifteen! She had not even completed her first 10 years of education and she was already married! How could my friend have done such a thing when he was known to be the most prudent man in the village? I had to get to the bottom of this, I thought. And so, I asked Sambhu. He didn’t seem very pleased but he couldn’t refuse for I was too close to him for it.

“My elder son has turned nineteen” he said, “but is very well built and seems to be handsome. Brides from very wealthy homes had already started asking for him. A party from neighboring village was ready to offer 1 lakh as dowry and was also from a political background like ours. You know how bhaiyya is. He thought it would be politically very advantageous to marry him in that household. It would wipe one of his very close competitors off and that party also had some far relation with us. He had to be married and it had to be them.

It was about the same time when Radha had her first menstrual cycle. What would people say if I married off her brother keeping an of age girl at home? After a little search we found this party from Shirdhon. They had everything; a well to do house hold, some land in the town and a handsome young lad who’d read till the 14th grade. We married both, my son and daughter, on the same muhurta.”

“Oh! Then howcome she’s here today? Has she come for Diwali?” I asked.

“No” said he, “she will be here only now, always.”

I did not understand but he knew he had to explain from the enquiring look in my eyes.

“She ran away on the suhaag raat”

“Did they beat her? Or demanded more dowry?…what?”

“No”

“Then…”

“He was continuously trying to touch her breast. All night she kept getting away and he kept coming closer. He asked her to remove her clothes. She thought it was all ugly and inhuman of him to treat her that way. We all tried to explain it to her but she did not understand. She is so scared, she refuses to go back.”

“Don’t worry” I said, “she will go when she knows what that was.”

“She will never know it saheb, that boy has already remarried and she is to stay with us here always hereafter.”

“You can remarry her!”

“No saheb, who will marry a girl who has spent night with a man? she is to be here with us, always!”

For the first time in 30yrs that I knew Sambhu, I left his place with a lump in the throat, tears in the eyes and nothing but sympathy in my heart for Radha, for I alone could do nothing, change nothing.

Prince...